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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26371900">busy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_of_words/pseuds/river_of_words'>river_of_words</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Post-Episode: s12e02 Spyfall Part 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:27:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,411</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26371900</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_of_words/pseuds/river_of_words</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"She's doing it again. Spending hours at the controls looking for something."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thirteenth Doctor &amp; Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor &amp; Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor &amp; Yasmin Khan &amp; Graham O'Brien &amp; Ryan Sinclair</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>busy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>just (13 september) read this post by someone with dyspraxia who sees themself in ryan: https://jenniferrpovey.tumblr.com/post/178832466580/so-im-going-to-get-personal-quite-personal-i</p><p>and: "And Chris Chibnall and Toisin Cole just gave all the kids out there who can’t pour into a glass, who’s brain just won’t make that coordination, who are frustrated to tears by video games…"</p><p>dont know if this is a pretty universal thing for people with dyspraxia or if it's highly dependent on the person like autistic stuff is, but if you have dyspraxia, sorry for the unintentional slap in the face that i did in this by implying ryan would play video games. didnt mean to erase his dyspraxia. i'll be more attentive in future</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Tea’s ready.”</p><p>Graham's voice rudely startled the Doctor out of her concentration. She took off her goggles and blinked against the unfiltered light of the console room. Graham was standing in the opening of a corridor. It took her a few seconds to organise some things in her head. Graham. Looking at her. Because she was... in the console room, that’s right, in the Tardis. Was it evening?</p><p>“Already?”</p><p>“It’s pretty late, actually. Quarter past eight. According to the clock in the kitchen.”</p><p>“We have a clock in the kitchen?”</p><p>“Yes, I’m not sure how accurate it is though. Are you coming?”</p><p>The Doctor’s eyes drifted over the console, the aftermath of her activities of the last couple of... hours, probably. Day? Vague, drifting memories clumsily bumping back into place. Conceptual geometry relay, temporal locator, a bunch of amplifiers of different shapes and sizes and designs and eras. She was trying to extend the range of the transdimensional radar, right. The field separator looked a bit... singed. She tentatively pressed her fingertips together, hm yeah, definitely burnt. There was a half-eaten custard cream lying abandoned on the chronometric astrometer. She tried the custard cream dispenser. Empty. She ate them all? She did feel a bit sick.</p><p>“Doctor?”</p><p>The Doctor looked up. “Not that hungry, thanks.” She started moving around some of the clutter on the console, to look busy and make Graham leave and also to find her train of thought back. What had she been doing?</p><p>“Have you eaten anything today?”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>,” she said indignantly, frowning at Graham. Off his dubious look, she added, “I have!”</p><p>It wasn’t a lie but Graham was going to think it was. Oh well. She wasn’t sure the truth would work in her favour anyway.</p><p>“Will you come sit with us while we eat, at least?”</p><p>She hummed her noncommitment so she didn’t have to say no.</p><p>“We barely see you anymore,” Graham pressed.</p><p>“Bit busy.”</p><p>Graham walked closer to see what she was working on. As if he’d understand.</p><p>“What with?” he asked, putting as much genuinely curious interest in his voice as he could so she wouldn’t think he was prying. The Doctor rolled her eyes.</p><p>“I think your food’s getting cold,” she said and put her goggles back on.</p>
<hr/><p>The absence detector returned its 157th error message. The Doctor kicked the console in frustration. Ryan poked his head into the console room.</p><p>“Everything okay?”</p><p>“Fine. Dropped something.” She quickly glanced at the floor to check. There was enough stuff scattered about. Not an obvious lie.</p><p>“What are you working on?” Ryan asked, walking in.</p><p>“Repairs,” she said, frowning at the Frankenconsole she’d been been assembling over the past week and a half. Ryan frowned at it too.</p><p>“The console didn’t used to look like this.”</p><p>“Modifications,” she corrected herself.</p><p>“Are you trying to make the Tardis go faster?” Ryan asked, grinning.</p><p>“No distance in the time vortex,” she mumbled absently as she started, once again, detaching the absence detector from the console. “No mass, no momentum.” It worked fine on its own, must be somewhere in the interaction with the ahistorical contextualiser that it went wrong.</p><p>“No speed,” she finished, removing absence detector from the console and trying to glare it into cooperation. What was the issue?</p><p>“Alright,” Ryan said, sounding mildly bummed out about the fact that time races apparently weren’t as much of a thing as space races. “What are you doing then?”</p><p>The Doctor looked up at the monstrosity of temporal antennae and amplifiers and every adapter she had lying around, towering more than a meter above their heads, precarious as a Jenga tower in the final stages of the game.</p><p>“Fixing the radio.”</p><p>“The <em>radio</em>?”</p><p>“Yup.”</p><p>“Why’s it so big?”</p><p>“Grandma, why are your ears so big,” she muttered, blowing on the absence detector. Maybe it just had some dust in it? She might have wanted to check that 156 error messages ago. At Ryan’s lack of response, she looked up. “Little red riding hood?”</p><p>“Yeah, I know.” He frowned. “The wolf eats her though.”</p><p>The Doctor stilled, absence detector still in her hands. She might have misjudged the appropriateness of that reference in this situation.</p><p>“Is this radio going to eat you?”</p><p>She stared up at the thing. “Quite possibly.”</p><p>After a moment of uncertain silence, Ryan took a sharp breath.</p><p>“Okay, uhm, I was just about to– Do you want to take a break? Play a video game? I’ll let you pick.”</p><p>“Have to finish this first.” She took a look at the ahistorical contextualiser. Was it just a compatibility issue? When was this contextualiser even from? Might need updating. “Er, sorry,” she offered Ryan as an afterthought.</p><p>“That’s okay,” Ryan said, but he sounded disappointed. The ahistorical contextualiser lost the Doctor’s interest. Should she go play video games with Ryan? Take a break? The thought made her buzz with an anxious urgency and she swirled around the console. She needed to finish this. She needed to talk to him. She needed to know. </p><p>“Alright, see you later, then,” Ryan said, walking away reluctantly. Just before leaving the room he added, “Don’t get eaten.”</p><p>The Doctor put on her welding mask.</p>
<hr/><p>Ryan sat down next to Yaz on the stairs in the console room.</p><p>“How long?”</p><p>Yaz fished her phone out of her pocket. “Almost 15 minutes.”</p><p>“Not that bad.”</p><p>“Yet,” Yaz added grimly, putting her phone away. “She still hasn’t noticed us.”</p><p>“And you’ve just been sitting here.” Ryan glanced at her. “Watching.”</p><p>Yaz blushed. “I’m <em>worried.</em>”</p><p>Ryan hummed in agreement. ‘Worried’ had been the common refrain in the Tardis for almost three weeks now. Over breakfast, over tea, in the hallway in passing, in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil, in the console room right under the Doctor’s nose: has she slept? has she eaten? has she talked to you? how long has she been wearing that shirt?</p><p>“What is she even doing?” Yaz asked, mostly rhetorically but Ryan answered anyway.</p><p>“It’s a radio.”</p><p>“A radio?” Yaz repeated, raising her eyebrows.</p><p>“That’s what she said.”</p><p>“Oh!” Yaz rolled her eyes, frustration bleeding into her voice, “That’s what <em>she </em>said!”</p><p>Ryan shrugged. He didn’t think it was true either but it was the only explanation they’d been offered. He raised his voice, “Hey, Doctor!”</p><p>She jumped, dropped the part she was working on, and muttered something that Ryan was pretty sure was a curse as she picked it back up.</p><p>“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”</p><p>“What,” she said, a bit sharper than necessary.</p><p>“Just wondering where we’re going tomorrow.”</p><p>Yaz poked him in the side with her elbow in protest or warning. Not everything has to be an intense stare-off, Yaz. Sometimes you can just gently force your friends to get some fresh air and extraterrestrial sunlight by starting the conversation off with the assumption they’re already going to.</p><p>The Doctor flipped a switch and the display on the wall lit up, showing the wishlist of destinations they had made on one of their first days in the Tardis. The Doctor had made them name places they wanted to go. Just really wildest dreams kind of stuff.</p><p><em>Shoot for the stars</em>, she’d said, which had made Yaz giggle and Ryan shake his head. <em>If you can imagine it, it probably exists. Not to discount the places you can’t imagine, of course! They exist just as well. Not their fault human imaginations are so limited.</em></p><p>When they were done, the Doctor had added a couple of places that apparently they really had to see at least once and since then they’d been slowly working their way through the list.</p><p>On quiet days she let them pick one. Or when she wanted to get back in someone’s good graces. After the death-eye turtle army misadventure they had visited one of Graham’s choices, then one of Ryan’s, and then one of Yaz’s. And then the Doctor decided she had apologised enough and the next place they landed they got chased by enormous snail people (sneople?). They are a lot faster when they’re the size of a truck! Not to mention: eyestalks. Ow.</p><p>They’d gone through most of the list by now. Lately they were burning through entries. Ryan wondered what was going to happen when the Doctor ran out of easy ways to keep them occupied. He met Yaz’s eyes. They reflected what Ryan was feeling. The Doctor had barely even looked at them.<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>dont know what this is. dont remember why i started writing it? it is fine i think? there's not a lot of new interesting stuff in it. from my perspective at least. although i did just realise ive never written any scene with just yaz and ryan before. theyre really fun together, i should do that more</p><p>i really want to make some fanvideos again because i have Ideas but my laptop keeps being all 'oh you wanted to run this enormous video editing program? yeah im not feeling it today'. so i guess im just gonna have to keep writing, which is fine and fun too but ugh. i wanna make a video</p><p>also: titles. why are they so hard</p></blockquote></div></div>
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